In order to optimize borehole placement and hydrocarbon extraction from an underground formation, a model of the formation may be created. Using the model, many simulations are performed with varying parameters, the varying parameters such as injection well placement, extraction well placement, and type and volume of secondary recovery fluid extraction. Although many parameters may be plotted and analyzed, in many cases the parameter of interest is hydrocarbon production from the formation.
In evaluating the modeled hydrocarbon production, an analyst may want to see the state of the formation model at the point in time of interest. However, in many cases it is difficult to identify and/or locate the earth model parameters that resulted in a particular hydrocarbon volume at a particular modeled time. For example, the analyst may be able to find from the data an indication of the simulation number, but then the analyst must be able to locate the data associated with the simulation, locate the output information and/or files which contain the output information and then invoke another program which displays a visual representation of the data and/or simulation results. The analyst could be working simultaneously with a range of models numbering from just a few hundreds or even thousands of simulation models. Even for a well organized analyst, when working with multiple models it may take ten minutes or more to find and plot the underlying simulation data. Moreover, the software package used to display the modeled hydrocarbon production is generally not the same as the software package used to display the underlying simulation data from the model, and thus it is difficult to correlate state of the underlying model (or models) at a particular modeled time as between the software package displaying the results and the software package displaying the underlying model parameters.
Any advance which shortens the time to find, display, and correlate output results to underlying model parameters would thus provide a competitive advantage.